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Hi Roger,
Roger said:
I simply meant that a browser doesn't understand the data, it simply
understands how to display the data. Semantic processing can be
incorportated into machines. For example, a cellphone application can
semantically process XML documents conforming to the cellphone vocabulary.
Didier replies:
Or we can say, in the context of an XML document that the browser provides
an interpretation of an XML document either through a CSS stylesheet or
through an XSLT template. What's missing though is a tool enabling
interpretations for a particular target procedural language. For instance,
if the target language supports a dynamic creation of objects (like
JavaScript) then, a possible interpretation would be a hierarchy of embedded
objects. In the first case (i.e. browser), the interpretation tools
transform the XML document's semantics into rendering objects and in the
latter case (i.e program) the semantics into another one but encoded
differently like for instance encoded as variables. The main difference that
we can notice between rendering objects and languages types (like a
structure or an object) is that the meaning of a particular assembly of
rendering objects is left to human interpretation. On the other hand,
language's types can be manipulated, transformed, converted into other types
or even trigger an action. The program provides meaning to the semantics by
performing operations on it. Obviously, the human operator can extract
knowledge from a particular visual layout. A program may also if the
semantics are processed though production rules (in the sense of AI) or
through logic operators. Actually tools like DOM remove the semantics after
having translated the document into an internal structure. We are left with
syntaxic constructs like "elements", "attributes" and so forth when in fact
we want constructs like, for example, "account", "clients", etc...
Cheers
Didier PH Martin
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